


Soulmate Stains

by onoheiwa



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:58:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6733402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onoheiwa/pseuds/onoheiwa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One trait ran true in every world, across every dimension and universe. Every person in every world had a soulmate and all people bore the marks on their skin. </p><p> </p><p>AU where the things you write or draw on your body shows up on the flesh of your soulmate as well.</p><p>01-05-2018: Remastered. The story is the same it just reads a lot nicer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soulmate Stains

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tumblr/Pinterest [prompt](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/242561129909674396/).
> 
> Chinese Translation.

The number of worlds in existence is infinite, each one possessing its own history, culture, landscape, and people. Many share languages, technology, or magic, and some worlds are so alike it is hardly possible to tell them apart.

And some worlds are so unique, so entirely different from all others that many believe they cannot even be real. They are the worlds we see glimpses of in dreams, that we speak of to young children as fairy tales and myths, the stories of forgotten worlds that are made of magic and fantasy and leave the logic and sense of average worlds by the wayside.

But one trait runs true in every world, across every dimension and in every universe; there is one attribute inside every living soul that can be found on every world. Every person in every world has a soulmate and all people bear the Marks on their skin.

~~~ 

Kurogane would never tell anyone, but he loves to draw.

As child to the lord of a small land, his education includes basic knowledge of the arts (alongside the day-to-day concerns of cataloguing taxes and resolving disputes between citizens). Reading and writing are necessary, too, of course, but calligraphy and literature are close companions to such things. The young lord must learn the more creative side of language, as well as the practical.

His mother begins his lessons with what she knew of flower arranging and painting while instructors are brought in to explain and demonstrate fighting and weaponry and any other subject the Lord of Suwa deems pertinent. Kurogane learns what he can and practices each new discipline with determination and focus, if not always enthusiasm. (Flower arranging is nice, he supposes, and it masks the rooms in the castle smell better, but no amount of persuasion wI’ll convince him that it is better to have them placed in exactly a certain way rather than putting a pot of growing plants in the room just as they were). He enjoys the books and ancient tales that tell of Japan’s birth and growth, the legends of heroes and emperors and warriors who defended the nation’s borders from demons and invaders for centuries.

But the young lord knew long before the lessons ever began that learning to draw will be his favorite.

~~~

The marks first appeared when he was just a few months old. The young priestess was changing her infant out of his old clothing and into something clean and fresh when dark lines began to spread across the baby’s wrist, curls of some strange design streaming along pale flesh like an inky river staining his skin.

All day long she pulled the swaddling aside, looking at the markings and watching as late that night they were scrubbed away, black lines dissipating in ragged swipes and crumbling bits.

The priestess paid close attention after that, noticing that her child’s markings behaved strangely. Sometimes they stayed for days on end before being wiped clean. Sone times they disappeared as quickly as they appeared, there and gone again in the blink of an eye, so fast she would have missed it if she had not been watching. It was as if the markings had a mind of their own, existing only so long as it pleased them and fading as befitted their fickle whims. She wondered what it meant. 

~~~

Kurogane cannot remember the first time he saw the marks appear, because they have always been. Sometimes he can only catch a glimpse of tangling lines and swirls out of the corner of his eye before they flash out of existence, swiped away and leaving tiny smudges and flecks of ink that fade within minutes. Sometimes he can spend days tracing the same pattern over and over again with his fingertips, eyes roving over the marks and memorizing every curve, every angle, every fleck that marrs his otherwise flawless skin, hoping to discover some meaning. 

It is years before he understands, years before his small mind begins write and read and sees the inherent patterns and designs of his language that he realizes: none of the marks on his arm are Japanese. They never are.

Kurogane is troubled for a short while for how is he supposed to find his soulmate if he cannot understand anything they say? BUt he decides that drawings can work just as well as writing to tell stories, to convey information, to find someone. Tanigawa-sensei has always said that art speaks and tells more than words ever can. 

Kurogane thinks that the curls and dots and jagged lines writ on his skin are beautiful.

~~~ 

Drawing and art are his way of trying to understand the mystery of his strange markings. He does not have a skill for language, so maybe the history and culture of art will help him understand what he sees on his skin. 

Everyone else has more normal markings, ones that appear steadily and gradually fade over the course of a few days, disappearing along with the ink the bearers themselves  drew into their own skin. Most often the marks are Japanese - words and notes and reminders, sometimes messages and letters to the one who will see them on their arms and legs and hands. Sometimes it is artwork- everything from random doodles to images worthy of the palace itself - and most people find bits of all anything and everything over time, changing day by day. The marks can appear anywhere, and those who‘s soulmates have a gift for art are often covered in impermanent tattoos, ink and charcoal on every inch of the body, a perfect match to their soulmate near or far. 

Kurogane‘s are different. Weeks can pass between one mark disappearing and another crawling along his skin and then suddenly a flood of marks will fly onto his flesh in inky lines and swirls, all of them blending together and covering each other, piling on top of one another into messy, indistinguishable blur. And then they would all vanish. The older he gets the less they spread, the marks confining themselves to no higher than half-way up his forearm. His left arm was a mystery and Kurogane spent days studying the marks when they appeared and days staring at his blank flesh and days upon days upon days wondering where his soulmate was, what language they spoke, if he would ever find them.

~~~

He started drawing when he was five, simple sketches at first in shaky lines and innacurate proportions, but he learned quickly and his hand grew steady as the days wore on.

As his sword arm grew stronger his drawing hand became smoother and soon the sketches became more realistic, more beautiful, and the scenes of his daily life found their way to his skin more often than he realized. He kept his left wrist bare, but his legs and arms and chest were constantly inked with flowers and trees and the tatami floors, the horses as they ran in the field and nipped at one another, the way the sun glinted off his mother’s hair pins or the smoke from the incense swirled around the shrine,  the blood dripping from his father’s clothes and armor when he strode through the palace gate.

He didn’t always know what he was hoping to convey with the pictures, but he drew them. His eyes watched and absorbed everything and everyone, always on the lookout for something beautiful or meaningful or unique to render. His memories and feelings were inked on his skin with brush and charcoal each day, his skills increasing as his eyes grew sharper; the tiniest shifts in expressions, the smallest traces of light and color, the barest hint of movement or change became clearer the more he watched the world around him until little could slip by him unnoticed. Kurogane saw everything and his art grew more beautiful.

~~~

Suwa falls and with it Kurogane’s heart. Suddenly the marks no longer seem important and black vambraces are donned. He covers his wrists and ignores the black swirls that sometimes appear at the edges of his armor. The boy who studied art and turned his body into a canvas was weak and sentimental and no longer necessary. Art does not make a warrior stronger and strength is all he needs. He stops drawing.

~~~

When he sees the mage his eyes are drawn first to the swirling pattern stitched in a broad cloak and then to the fake smile stretched across his face. The lines are familiar, somehow, something nostalgic in the way they flow and dance then altere their path with mania, in the dots and thicker lines scattered throughout, but his instincts tell him to divert his attention to the person who wears the clothing. Empty blue eyes dispell any thoughts of swirls and patterns, of drawing and hours upon hours spent tracing inky marks on his wrist. Something about this man is strange, something about him is dangerous, and that is more important.

~~~

It is not until the ruins of Tokyo in the reservoir that Kurogane thinks again about the marks on the mage’s coat. Not until he sees his magic scrawled in the air with light and energy by the kid, symbols and swirls that are so very familiar. Over a decade has passed since he looked at his wrists with more than a passing glance and for nearly half that long he has not even seen a glimpse of black ink flitting into existence at the edge of his vambraces, but the moment he sees the magic exploding throughout the room he remembers it all so vividly that everything else fades for a moment.

Chaos follows and Kurogane cannot spare another second to ponder markings and art and strange symbols. It is a long time before there is  a second to spare even to  thoughts that don’t revolve around feathers and blood and mad wishes and fighting desperately to protect those he cares about. But he knows; he knows it down in his very soul and somehow the way his eyes had been drawn to a white cloak and blue eyes before anything else makes sense now. 

~~~

Kurogane has never been good at speaking his mind or his heart. He can teach and he can say what he needs to when it is necessary, but art is how he has taught himself to express what he feels and thinks. He decides that maybe it is time to start drawing again.

In the lull that follows their emergence from the ruins of Clow Country, Kurogane seeks out a servant to bring him charcoal or ink and brush, something he can use to mark his skin. He sits on the balcony of his room, gazing out into the distance, seeing blue eyes and golden hair instead of an expansive sky and a sea of sand and takes off his vambraces. He lets his fingers drift slowly, letting his body remember the skill his mind has left absent for so long and watches the images emerge underneath the brush with each stroke.

He draws for hours, painting onto his flesh the moments he remembers best, the antics that had made him want to smile, the expressions that made him furious, the choices that baffled him and the remarks that surprised him. He draws every memory of significance, the good and the bad, everything he can remember of their journey from its beginning until now, trying to explain through the depictions how he has changed and grown, how his feelings have changed throughout. Over and over again, a pair of eyes find their way onto his body and with each new depiction the face they are set in becomes more and more beautiful - starting out blurry and shadowed and getting clearer and brighter as the journey continued and Kurogane had come to know the man better with each passing day. He draws what he saw and what he saw was lovely and beloved and he hopes to convey that with each line and curve and stroke of his brush.

It does not matter anymore who his soulmate is, he knows who he wants. He knows who he loves. He hopes that if it is not the one he believes it to be, then they will understand, that they will see his story and see how he could not possibly love anyone else. 

But he knows, knows in his bones, that he has no reason to worry. 

~~~

It is hours before the wizard seeks him out where he sits on his balcony, back braced against the wall and long legs splayed in front of him. He comes in quietly and stands at the doorway, staring out toward the horizon for a long time without saying a word.

The sun is nearing the horizon when he finally folds his long limbs and sits, motionless for a moment before reaching slowly for the brush where it still lies in its inkpot and brings the soft bristles to his left wrist. He writes slowly, carefully, tracing jagged yet elegant symbols across his wrist in an ebony stain that are nearly lost among the fortune of images gracing his pale skin. He writes and then he places the brush back where it had come from and leans back against the wall with a slow, quiet breath, his hands resting in his lap.

Kurogane traces a finger along the symbols newly inked in his flesh, marveling at the familiarity of them despite the long years. He wants to say so much, wants to ask so many questions that he feels like he is choking on them, but settles on the simplest one, the one that matters the most just then.

“What does it mean?”

Fai shrugs, eyes sparkling. “I love you.” 

Kurogane smiles. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](onoheiwa.tumblr.com).


End file.
